Politics

By Gregory Krieg, CNN As the number of new coronavirus cases in his state soars, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is betting that an aggressive campaign against mandatory mask-wearing in schools will harden the Republican base ahead of his expected re-election bid next year — and make him a GOP star nationwide as the party’s 2024

By Kate Sullivan and Kevin Liptak, CNN President Joe Biden on Friday tried to put an optimistic face on the chaotic evacuations taking place at Kabul’s airport as American forces scramble to remove US citizens and vulnerable Afghans from Afghanistan. In remarks at the White House, Biden sought to project calm at the end of

By Tierney Sneed and Priscilla Alvarez, CNN Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito put a brief hold on a lower court decision requiring the revival of a controversial Trump-era policy that forced migrants to stay in Mexico until their US immigration court dates. The temporary move will allow time for the Supreme Court to review the

By Priscilla Alvarez and Tierney Sneed, CNN The US is extending non-essential travel restrictions at its land borders with Canada and Mexico through at least September 21, the Department of Homeland Security announced Friday, citing the Delta variant of the coronavirus. “In coordination with public health and medical experts, DHS continues working closely with its

By Jasmine Wright and Arlette Saenz, CNN Vice President Kamala Harris faces a steep challenge next week when she travels to Singapore and Vietnam, as a once-low-risk trip to friendly nations comes at the same time as a bungled US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Harris will have dual responsibilities largely unfamiliar to her in the seven

By Paul LeBlanc, CNN A former Trump administration official said Thursday evening that the Biden administration’s decision to stick with the US’ 2020 agreement with the Taliban is “why we are where we are now” and that the US has “literally pulled the rug out from under the Afghans.” “The Biden administration had an opportunity

By Paul LeBlanc, CNN The US Education Department announced Thursday it will cancel $5.8 billion in outstanding student loans for borrowers who are unable to work because of permanent disabilities. More than 320,000 “total and permanent disability” borrowers will benefit from the move, the agency said in a press release, and hurdles for relief will

By Dianne Gallagher, CNN Texas House Democrats’ historic quorum break unexpectedly ended Thursday evening when at least three new Democrats returned to the floor, paving the way for state Republicans to pass restrictive voting legislation. The surprise turn of events quickly led to public accusations of betrayal among Democrats, as the House now has the

By Kylie Atwood, CNN A group of US diplomats wrote a classified cable to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in mid-July warning that swift action needed to be taken because they believed the situation in Afghanistan could rapidly deteriorate and they feared a catastrophe. They laid out how the department should act quickly to process

By Kevin Liptak, Jeff Zeleny, Kaitlan Collins and Jeremy Diamond, CNN Two photographs of President Joe Biden this week neatly illustrated the White House’s fight to contain the fallout of the biggest crisis of his presidency. In the first, he sat alone at Camp David, staring upwards at a bank of video monitors surrounded by

By Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen and Kylie Atwood, CNN While the US State Department continues to engage in high-level diplomatic talks with the Taliban in the neutral setting of Doha, Qatar, as it has for the past year, the real negotiations have moved to the chaotic streets of Kabul in recent days, where American military

By Priscilla Alvarez and Geneva Sands, CNN The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to process the influx of Afghans rushing to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban overtakes the country. In recent days, administration officials worked overtime to pull lists of names of special immigrant visa applicants to push through systems and get security checks

By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN A US federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a Texas law restricting a second-trimester abortion procedure, overturning a lower court’s decision that had blocked the measure from going into effect. Wednesday’s decision amounts to the first time that a US federal court has upheld a restriction on the procedure known as